This Costco Uncooked Rotisserie Chicken Hack Could Stock Your Freezer for a Month

In a time when people are scrounging to afford basic essentials like toilet paper, money-saving food hacks literally become gold. Like this Costco uncooked rotisserie chicken hack TikTok user @interplanetjanet introduced to users because it lets you score several rotisserie chickens (uncooked) for $5 each.

Sure, Sam’s Club offers the same thing at the same price point at certain locations, but their chicken is already cooked, and buying that in bulk can easily turn into a ton of spoiled chicken.

So if your wallet is looking a little sad these days and you’re trying to stretch your dollar, listen up.

If you’re someone who loves a good money-saving hack that’ll fill up your fridge (or freezer, in this case), you’re in for a real treat with this one TikToker @interplanetjanet shared. And all it requires on your part is mustering up a little courage to ask a Costco employee for help (and yes, you’ll need a membership too).

In @interplanetjanet’s video, she heads over to Costco’s meat department, where she is handed a large box of rotisserie chicken. Inside are 10 full chickens, raw, priced at $49.99, which breaks down to about $5 per chicken. When you compare that to what you’d spend on a single raw chicken at Walmart, you’re saving almost $4, since Walmart typically sells whole chickens for around $8 (and sometimes over $9 depending on the store and brand).

But that’s not the end of the hack. Because what do you even do with 10 whole raw chickens, right?

Well, @interplanetjanet then takes her hefty box of chickens home and gets to work chopping them up. Using a sturdy, sharp knife, she separates everything into parts, putting legs in one pile and thighs in another.

She then adds her desired amount of pieces into bags and uses a portable vacuum sealer to close them up so they can be safely stored in the freezer (you can find these for around $25 or even cheaper at Walmart).

It’s definitely a process, but she claimed it was enough to feed her household for a month. Not to mention, she said she still had some leftover steak in the freezer by following a similar hack (though it’s unclear if the steak came from Costco too).

Aside from being seriously cost-effective, what’s also nice about this hack is that the box’s sell-by date was only a day after the package date. So these chickens weren’t just sitting around forever and potentially at risk of spoiling.

Now, while plenty of people were impressed, some pointed out how hard it is to break down even one chicken, let alone 10. But one person was nice enough to drop a helpful tip, saying you’ll want to find the joints and use a solid deboning knife, which should make separating everything much easier.

Others, however, were quick to call out Costco for using carrageenan in their rotisserie chickens, with some commenters claiming it could be harmful. But plenty of people jumped to the warehouse retailer’s defense, saying it’s simply “a gelling compound derived from seaweed.”

There was a ton of back-and-forth in the comments, so it’s definitely worth doing your own research. Some sources, like The Cornucopia Institute, claim that processed carrageenan may cause inflammation for some. That said, if it’s in this chicken, there’s a good chance it’s also in other retailers’ chickens, too.

Nonetheless, it’s a pretty solid way to save money in these tough times, so shoutout to @interplanetjanet for sharing! Now you just have to hope your Costco has it available.